


A Life Lived in the Gap Between Moments

by Elwyne



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 10:44:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3206336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elwyne/pseuds/Elwyne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>'Doomsday,' between Canary Wharf and Bad Wolf Bay. What did Rose do when she was left alone in that other world? How did she manage? What about her family, her friends, her job? What happened, while the Doctor was away?</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Life Lived in the Gap Between Moments

"Rose."  
  
I wiped the tears from my cheeks, but I didn't have the strength to lift my head.  
  
"Rose, sweetheart," my mother said.   
  
The wall had closed. It was my fault; I let go. I only needed to hold on for another minute or two, and I couldn't do it. I'd never forget his face, screaming as I flew away from him. I pressed my head against the cold hard wall, and imagined I could hear him on the other side.  
  
"We should go," said Pete. Pete Tyler, my dad, and not my dad. I ignored him.  
  
I should be grateful to Pete. My dad. If he hadn't jumped at the last instant, I'd be trapped forever in the void. Alone, and in hell. Here at least I had my family. But more tears came, and I huddled against the wall. Mum came and took my shoulders.  
  
"Come on, sweetheart," she said. "Come on."  
  
  
I sat in the back of Pete's Jeep, Mum's arms around me. Mickey and Jake in front kept looking at me over their shoulders. I couldn't stop crying.  
  
"I moved Gran into Pete's mansion," Mickey told Mum. "She thinks she's died and gone to heaven." He flashed his cheeky grin. "There's lots of room for you, isn't that right, Pete?"  
  
"Don't worry about a thing, Jacks," said Pete. "We'll look after you."  
  
Mum hugged me. She must have been scared; she'd just been taken away from her home and her life forever, no going back. All her friends, her customers, her job, gone. In this universe she was someone else entirely. I dried my cheeks again, and held her hand.  
  
"You'll be all right, Mum," I said.  
  
"Oh, sweetheart," she said. "So will you."  
  
More tears fell, washing her away.  
  
  
He offered us our pick of the bedrooms. There must have been a dozen. Mum, unsurprisingly, picked the one that had been hers, the other Jackie's. No one mentioned her, but I could see her reflected in Pete's face. Three years had passed, he said; three years since she and all those others had died. Her personal things were gone from the room, but the dainty pink decor remained. So Mum.   
  
As she made herself at home, I chose a room as far from the others as I could manage. It was in the west wing, a private apartment set aside for unpleasant in-laws or lower-class relations. Isolated from the rest of the house, its windows looked out onto the back gardens, rather than the city view most of the other rooms enjoyed. Dad - Pete - looked as though he meant to argue with my choice, but in the end he decided not to. I went inside and closed the door.  
  
Someone knocked softly, and when I didn't answer, Mum came in.  
  
"Sweetheart," she said. "Oh, Rose, my poor love." She sat beside me and stroked my hair. I began to cry again; I didn't know there could be so many tears.  
  
"I can't believe he's gone, Mum."  
  
"I know, sweetheart," she said.  
  
"What do I do now?"  
  
"You'll manage. You'll see! You've got me, and Mickey, and now your dad. It's like having a real family again." She fell silent, mid-thought; I looked up to see her staring strangely at the door. "Pete Tyler," she said softly. "After all these years. Can it really be him?"  
  
"Yeah," I said. "He's the same man you married, Mum. The same good man. He's had a different life, but it's really him."  
  
She looked at me in awe. "I still can't believe all this. Time travel!" She shook her head. "If I didn't know better, I'd... well, I don't know what I'd think."  
  
I struggled to sit up, and gave her a hug. We held each other a long time.  
  
"How did you manage?" I asked her. "When Dad died? How did you go on?"  
  
"Your Doctor's not dead, love. He's alive and well."  
  
"But he's gone, Mum," I wailed. "I'll never see him again."  
  
"That's what I thought too," she said. "And look at me! Here I am, with Peter Alan Tyler and his grand mansion! Who would believe it!"  
  
I hid my face in my sleeve. "Oh, sweetheart," she said, and hugged me again. "You'll be all right. You just take one day at a time."   
  
I didn't see how that would help. I cried on her shoulder as she stroked my hair.  
  
"Just don't you do what I did, love," she said. "Don't you wait twenty years. Me, I had you to look after. Kept me young, you did. You just have yourself. You have your cry, and come have some tea, and it will all be all right. You'll see."  
  
I didn't believe her.  
  
  
Some time that night, I finally ran out of tears. I lay in the dark and listened to the silence. So different from the city noise of the estate, the strange machine noise of the TARDIS. I felt wrung out, like damp cloth; impossibly tired, but I couldn't sleep. I got up and washed my face - I looked horrible, so red and puffy - and went to sit in the window.  
  
The gardens were dark. There was a faint glow from the other side of the house; the glow of the city. But the sky before me was clear and peppered with stars. I gazed at them, my head resting heavily on the window frame, and wondered which were the ones I'd visited. Which were the ones he'd visit without me.  
  
What was he doing now, I wondered. He must have left Torchwood behind. Gone back to the TARDIS and flown off at random, pulling levers and throwing switches in the mad way he did when he was angry. I hoped he'd be all right. Don't be silly, I told myself. 'Course he would. He's always all right.  
  
No nine hundred year old Time Lord would lose himself over a twenty-one year old shop girl.  
  
I couldn't decide if that made me feel better or worse. I crawled back into bed and tried to sleep.  
  
  
Morning came, clear and bright, and birds sang outside my window. I pulled the blankets up over my head. Someone tapped at the door and entered without waiting. I peeked out from under the blankets, pretending to be asleep.  
  
It was a maid with a tea tray. She set the tray down on a table at the end of the bed, then stepped lightly across the room and opened the curtains. I must have made some noise; she looked at me with a bright smile.  
  
"Tea, miss?" she said. Returning to her tray, she poured without waiting for my answer. I struggled to sit up and pushed my hair from my face. She set the cup beside me on the night stand. It felt odd to have someone bring me tea, odd to have someone besides my mother see me in my bleary early-morning state; I rubbed the grit from my eyes and tried to smile.  
  
"What's your name?" I said.  
  
"Tina, miss," she said, blushing. "Mrs. Lane the housekeeper sent up some things for you to wear. Mr. Tyler said you hadn't any of your own." The girl squelched her obvious curiosity. "Shall I bring them, miss?"  
  
I nodded. "Thanks."  
  
She trotted out, and I sipped my tea, feeling surreal.  
  
In an instant she was back, with an armload of things which she laid on the bed. "Will you be needing anything else, miss?" she asked.  
  
"No, no thank you. Thank you very much." She bobbed a curtsy and left. I felt strangely detached; this wasn't my life, it was someone else's. I finished my tea and dragged myself out of bed.  
  
At the window I stopped and peered out. The garden behind the house seemed to go on for days. The sky was so blue, it looked unnatural. In the distance a single zeppelin inched its way along the horizon, adding to the strangeness of the scene. I rubbed my eyes and went to shower.  
  
Clean, and more or less refreshed, I picked through the clothes on the bed. Someone had been hurriedly shopping. The slacks weren't flattering, but they would do. The selection of tops were the right size at least. I pulled on a tee shirt, and heard another tap at the door.  
  
"Come in," I called.  
  
Tina opened the door and stepped in with a curtsy. "Begging your pardon, miss," she said. "Mr. Tyler would like to see you in the library, when you're ready."  
  
"I'm ready," I said, pulling a sweatshirt over my head. "Do you suppose you could show me where the library is?"  
  
"Of course, miss," she said.  
  
  
The mansion was larger and more rambling than I remembered, but eventually we reached the library. Dad - Pete - sat behind a broad wooden desk, scribbling at his tablet computer with a tiny stylus. Tina bobbed another curtsy and left me. I shoved my hands in my pockets and cleared my throat.  
  
"You wanted to see me? Um, Dad?"  
  
He looked up. I couldn't read the look on his face, but he clearly wasn't used to being Dad. I wasn't sure it would stick.  
  
"Yes, Rose. Hello." He set aside the computer and gestured to a chair. "Come in, please. I see Tina brought you some clothes. Franklin - he's my driver - Franklin will take you shopping any time you like. Well, when he gets back, that is. He's out with your mother at the moment." A smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. "Every inch my Jacks, she is."  
  
"Yeah, she is," I said, sinking into the offered chair.  
  
He looked at me searchingly. "How are you, Rose?"  
  
I shrugged; I didn't trust myself to speak. He looked down, tight-lipped, and pushed something across the desk at me: a cash card. "I set you up with some money of your own. You and your mum." He shook his head, smiling again. "You're my family, after all."  
  
I picked up the card. It had my name on it; he'd been busy already. "Thanks," I murmured, then looked up at him. "For everything. I'd be dead, or worse, if you hadn't -"  
  
He stopped me with a gesture; just as well, since I doubted I could speak any more. "Don't, Rose. It's all right." He chuckled, shaking his head. "When you disappeared, your mother - well. Let's just say I had to try. Lucky thing I did."  
  
I nodded, looking down at the card. I could feel him watching me. "My daughter," he murmured, and I could hear his disbelief. He tried to smile. "We always wanted kids, me and Jacks. We just never - " He stopped, thinking of his own Jackie, I imagined. The strangeness that is life, sometimes, with the Doctor around. My heart lurched suddenly - he wouldn't be around any more, not ever - and I fought down tears.  
  
Dad cleared his throat noisily, changing the subject. "What would you think of coming to work at Torchwood?" he said.  
  
I looked up in surprise. "Me? Torchwood?"  
  
He smiled. "It's not quite the same organization it was in your world. A bit more slapdash, I would say. We don't have the Rift here, so there isn't the same level of otherworldly flotsam and jetsam that you would get; there isn't the same level of need. But still, strange things fall from the sky, or grow out of the laboratories of mad scientists, and they must be investigated."  
  
"I never finished school, you know," I said.  
  
"But you have the most important kind of education," he said, leaning forward eagerly. "You've been there. You've seen things the rest of us can't begin to imagine. We've learned so much about the universe just having your Mickey around. You would be an asset."  
  
I stared at him. He looked like he meant it. I nodded.  
  
"Wonderful," he said. "I'll take you around, later, when you've had some time to settle. Tomorrow, maybe. Now, Rose," he added, serious again. "Is there anything else you need?"  
  
Yes, I thought, but I only shook my head.  
  
"This is your home now," he said. "Anything you need, anything you want, you just let me know. All right?"  
  
I nodded, tears filling my eyes again, when a commotion from the hallway announced my mother's return.  
  
  
Mum was in heaven. She had spent the morning getting her hair done, shopping to her heart's content, ordering servants around as if she were made for it. The driver brought in her shopping bags, and a maid appeared to put the things away. Mum gave Pete a quick peck on the cheek - by way of thanks, I supposed - and bustled me into the kitchen. After she had directed the cook in giving me breakfast, she dragged me out again to buy some clothes of my own. She was like a runaway train. It was probably just as well; I did need things, and on my own I might not have left my room. Afterward we had tea, and went to a movie, and then out for a pint; all those mother-daughter things she always said she wanted to do and never did.  
  
I was exhausted by the time we returned, my energy drained. Mum had hardly stopped talking the whole day, though I had barely listened; back in my quiet room, her voice echoed in my head. I hung up my new clothes in my new closet - Tina had offered, but I wouldn't let her - and sat down by the window. The sky was clear, and I gazed up at the stars I would never visit again.  
  
Days had passed that I'd listened to his prattle, his voice going on nonstop until it echoed in my ears. My heart ached for him.  
  
Too tired to cry any more, I crawled into bed and slept.  
  
  
In the morning Dad took me to Torchwood. It wasn't all posh and modern as Canary Wharf had been; more like a rabbit hole of dim rooms in the basement of an old library. Very much the sort of place Rickey Smith's band would have hung about in, complete with armed guards. Mickey and Jake were out, tracking a meteor that may have landed in a park outside the city. But a half a dozen others poked at fancy computers, peered into microscopes, set fire to strange things in test tubes. All were pleasant and cheerful, if odd; it was Torchwood after all. They seemed pleased to meet me. I didn't know what I might do for them, but they seemed happy just to have me around. They were full of questions about my time with the Doctor; they'd heard some from Mickey, and they couldn't get enough. But Dad rushed them back to work before I reached my limit.  
  
"Are you all right?" he asked when we were alone.  
  
"As I'll ever be, I suppose."  
  
"You were in love with him?"  
  
My eyes filled with tears. "Must have been."  
  
"I'm sorry."  
  
I nodded, blinking away the tears.  
  
"However," he said, "as your Dad, I have to say I think he's a bit old for you."  
  
I couldn't help but laugh.  
  
  
Jake came to the house for dinner, as it seemed he usually did, and six of us sat around the table: Mum, Dad, me, Mickey, Jake, and Mickey's gran. Mickey and Jake took turns telling of their search for the fallen rock in the park. Mickey's gran constantly slapped him for lying, though likely every word was true; it seemed a joke between them. He looked happy. Being a hero, and looking after his Gran, had been good for him.  
  
After dinner he approached me as I sat alone in front of the fireplace. "You all right?" he said.  
  
"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"  
  
"Cuz you look like someone died," he said, instantly regretting it. "Sorry. I'm really sorry. I know you - you're upset about the Doctor. It's only natural. You and him have been..." His voice trailed off, and he looked at his shoes. "Look," he said. "I thought you should know, I didn't want you to find out and think I was hiding it. I've been seeing someone."  
  
I had that surreal feeling again. He was the Mickey I knew, and he wasn't.  
  
"She nice?" I said.  
  
"Yeah," he said, unsmiling. "Met her in Paris, when me and Jake were fighting the Cybermen. Name's Lily. She comes out here now and again; she worked for the Resistance against Cybus, and now she's trying to get Torchwood going on the continent. Anyway," he shrugged, "I thought you should know."  
  
"Thanks," I said, meaning it. "I'm glad for you. You deserve someone nice."  
  
He looked at me as if he didn't quite believe me. "You sure you're okay?"  
  
"No, Mickey, I'm not okay!" Tears raced down my cheeks again, and I dashed them away with my sleeve. "He was the best thing ever happened to me, and now I'm never going to see him again. I promised him I'd never leave him, and then I let go!" I glared at the hands that had betrayed me, sobbing; Mickey stood there with his hands in his pockets, looking for all the world like a kicked puppy. "I'm sorry, Mickey. I really think I ought to be alone."  
  
"Right," he said uncertainly. "I'll see you."  
  
  
That night the dreams began. A soft voice called to me, searching in the dark. I cried out, but he couldn't hear. He just kept calling, and his voice slowly faded away.  
  
I woke up alone and cried myself back to sleep.  
  
  
Somehow, life went on.  
  
I got up mornings and went with Dad and Mickey to Torchwood. There was always something odd going on, though mostly it was false alarms. Sleepwalkers thinking they'd been kidnapped by aliens, spaceships that turned out to be streetlights in the fog, monsters that were only alley cats after a bad fight. Rocks falling from the sky, turned out to be just rocks.  
  
Still. A security camera in the Tube caught sight of something that looked Slitheen. We spent days tracking it through the tunnels; hard to find something that could look like anyone. But in the end we did find it, and armed with a sort of alien stun gun that one of the brighter types had reverse engineered from space junk, we caught it. It wasn't actually a Slitheen - I kept forgetting, that was the family name - but it was of the same race, from the planet Raxicoricofallopatorius, on the run from its planet's rather draconian laws. His ship had crashed in the Thames, in strange parallel to the Slitheen attack back home; but he had crashed at night, far upriver, and never been discovered. We ended up helping him to escape Earth and his pursuers. I felt maybe the Doctor would have been proud of what we'd done.  
  
The Torchwood team started to become my friends. Mickey and Jake, and Lily; Ianto, the office boy turned computer whiz; Anne, the xenobiologist; Oliver, who could build anything out of nothing; Geoff, a doctor; Lisa, astrophysicist and geologist; Nicole, polymath; and Jim, politician, bureaucrat, and Dad's second in command. Nicole in particular was someone I could talk to; she listened, and didn't offer an opinion. But all of us went out to the pub of a Friday night and shared a few laughs. Even Mum came out with us a time or two, and rolled her eyes at our talk. She and Dad seemed to have started something; they held hands where they thought no one could see, and more than once I caught them snogging like teenagers in the car. I pretended not to notice. Another odd sensation; my parents dating, getting to know one another as if they didn't already know each other as well as anyone. Mum seemed to glow, and I was happy for her. She'd been lonely for a long time.  
  
She came to me one night as I sat on the sofa in front of the fireplace. She sat down beside me, put her arm across my shoulders, and gazed with me into the flames.  
  
"Everything all right, Mum?" I asked.  
  
"Oh, yes," she said, the orange light flickering on her face. She fell silent, rare for her. I waited.  
  
"You know, sweetheart," she said at last, "your dad and me... well, we've been trying things out."  
  
"Yeah?"  
  
She nodded. "Hard to believe, but he really is the same man. My Pete, all these years later." She hugged me around the shoulders. "Sweetheart," she said, "you're going to have a little brother."  
  
I gaped at her. "Brother?"  
  
She smiled. "Or sister. But I think it's going to be a boy. Pete Tyler's son, just like he always wanted."  
  
"Oh, Mum," I cried, and hugged her. She hugged me back hard. "That's wonderful," I murmured in her ear.  
  
She let me go and looked at me, brushing the hair from my face. There were tears in her eyes. "Are you all right, sweetheart?"  
  
I nodded, my own eyes stinging. She hugged me again; I lay my head on her shoulder, and together we stared into the flames.  
  
  
Again I dreamed. His voice called, softly, over an immense distance. I struggled to reach him, to call back to him, but only in vain. I woke sobbing, and did not sleep again.  
  
  
It was Saturday. The office was closed; even aliens take days off sometimes. Mum and I had been doing some shopping for the baby, and stopped for an ice cream like we had done when I was small. She looked at me with a gleam in her eye.  
  
"What's that look for?" I asked. "Have I got something on my chin?"  
  
She smiled and looked away. "That Ianto, he's sweet on you."  
  
I nearly choked on my ice cream. "Mum, don't."  
  
"What? He's a nice boy. Very pretty." She gave me that sly look, like she used to when she fancied a boy my age. "He'd be good for you, you know. Nice and clean, no airs about him. You should ask him out for coffee."  
  
I felt cold and queasy. "No, Mum. I can't."  
  
"I worry about you, sweetheart. Pining away, it isn't good for you. You ought to get your mind off things, have a little fun." She frowned. "He isn't coming back, you know. You ought to let him go."  
  
"I can't," I sobbed, and pushed away from the table. Before I knew what I was doing I was out of the store and halfway down the block. I heard her call after me, but I ducked through the crowded street, head down, and left her behind.  
  
I walked for hours in the rain. My mobile rang again and again, until I switched it off. She was right; he wasn't coming back. I had to move on. He'd told me once, a century ago it seemed, the best way to remember him was to have a fantastic life. I could not begin to imagine how to do that.  
  
Though it was past midnight, she was waiting on the sofa before the fire when I crept back to the mansion. She looked at me with sad eyes.  
  
"I'm sorry, Mum," I said as my tears returned.  
  
"It's all right, love," she said, holding out her arms. "Come and sit."  
  
I joined her on the sofa. She hugged my shoulders and stroked my hair. I dried my eyes.  
  
"I know you're glad he's gone," I said.  
  
"I never said that," she answered.  
  
"I know. But it's true. You never did trust me again, after he... after I was gone a year. You always worried next time, I wouldn't come back at all."  
  
She didn't answer.  
  
"You don't have to worry about that any more," I said.  
  
"Sweetheart," she said, but had nothing to add.  
  
"I'm sorry I made you worry, Mum. And I'm sorry I..." I struggled to speak past the lump in my throat. "If I'd stayed with him I would have never seen you again, not ever. I chose that. I'm so sorry. And I'm sorry, but... I would do it again. I love you, Mum, but I would do it again."  
  
She sighed and hugged me. "I love you too, sweetheart," she said.  
  
  
"Rose."  
  
I sat bolt upright in bed, my heart pounding.  
  
"Rose," he said again, his voice as clear as day.  
  
"Doctor?"  
  
"Rose."  
  
I scrambled out of bed and pulled on my clothes. "I'm coming, Doctor. I'm coming!"

**Author's Note:**

> Originally published 11/8/2012 on whofic.com as 'Inter-Doomsday.'


End file.
